Sonata per violin solo

Sonata per violin solo [1935]

1. Allegro

2. Adagio

3. Allegro molto

This is one of those works talked about in hushed tones and it is a tremendous privilege for us to hear it alongside its transcendent successor the Bartók Sonata. Veress himself is one of the unknown-knowns still to be fully discovered in the music of the last century. He was the successor of the Hungarian musical tradition of Bartók and Kodály and studied with them the folk music of the Balkans and the Middle East. Like his teacher Bartók and his student Ligeti, he became an exile, departing Hungary for Switzerland in 1949, where, again like Bartók in New York, he was never happy.

The Sonata is a short, highly compressed work, two quick movements frame the sublime Adagio core. This is a long elegy of astounding beauty that gradually arouses itself to a climax of sorrow that fades into a sad aftersong, whose few bars are unbearably poignant. The music is bracketed by three perfect pizzicatos, the last one a quiet farewell before the breathless celebration of the Finale. This irresistible movement’s metre changes almost bar by bar hidden in the incessant flow of the music that leads inexorably to Bartók’s Solo Sonata.  …